God Bless Us, Most of Us

Dec14

Parker Lancaster looks at the many faces of Scrooge through the years.

Well, friends. It’s Christmas. Again. Yaaay. Once
again, we celebrate this, the most wonderful time of the year, with deadly
Walmart flash sale stampedes to the soundtrack of Wham!’s “Last Christmas” set
on repeat. Once again, we dance beneath the mistletoe to soul-soothing covers
of the classics and heartwarming original tunes of holiday joy by such crooners
as Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Patti LaBelle, Michael Bublé, Bob Goulet, Wild Man Fischer, and of
course, the inimitable Eric Idle. It’s Christmastime in the city (and in the
country, too, I suppose), and children are laughing, and people are passing,
meeting smile after smile, and on every street corner you hear silver bells.
But it doesn’t stop there. Oh, no.

Everywhere you go, you’re
treated to an aural onslaught, a sadistically violent assault on your delicate
eardrums, with the incessant, relentless and maddening RINGA-DINGA-LINGA-CHINGA-RINGA-LINGA-SHINGA-DINGA-RINGA-RINGA! of
the deafening handbells furiously swung by the dreadful army of panhandling
Salvation Army Santas permanently camped outside of every department store, gas
station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, cathouse, and
doghouse in America. Even at your Christmas dinner table, for some reason,
someone let one of them in. They’ve breached the castle walls. While you’re
delicately nibbling your nana’s spice cake and ham, the Salvation Army Guy
(whose name is most likely Greg) is asking for spare change while thunderously
banging his little bell in your face until the concussive shockwaves of sound cause
spinal fluid to leak out of your ears and you begin to suffer from short term
memory loss and blurred vision. Even when you turn the shower on and pull back
the curtain, Greg is there, soaking wet in full Santa attire, staring into your
soul with a haunted thousand yard stare, smashing that bell until the mirror
cracks. The Gregs of the world, dedicated and professional Santas that they
are, will never eat. They will never sleep. And they will never stop.
Ring-a-ling. Hear them ring.

And so it is that we find
ourselves lucky enough to be in that time of year again for forced merriment,
massive credit card debt and payday loans to afford another haul of presents,
drunk relatives aspersing your political affiliation over dinner, and, of
course, an obligatory annual reading of Charles Dickens’s classic novella, A Christmas Carol. I suppose that being
flooded with so much stomach-churning Christmas cheer from all sides might
actually make one’s Christmas somewhat merry, even if only by accident. So
bring on the book and the eggnog, I say. Carol
is the quintessential Christmas story, and the overwhelming (and still growing)
number of adaptations that have been made of the story in every medium of
entertainment attest to its enduring popularity. It seems likely that even
after homo sapiens has relocated to another galaxy in the 24 ½th century, we’ll
still be flocking to the movies and to the theatre in our flying horseless
carriages to see men in shiny foil spacesuits (which is what people would be
wearing all the time in the 24 ½th century, obviously) acting out the cherished
old tale of Scrooge the miser and how he reformed his selfish ways on Christmas
day.

Lovers of Dickens’s book
are absolutely spoiled for choice among the sea of excellent adaptations of the
story, especially on film, but also on TV, stage, and in archived radio plays.
Being a character who transforms completely from a revoltingly cruel
misanthrope to a loving, generous honorary city father, the role is especially
difficult to act, and requires the talents of a skilled veteran leading actor.
Consequently, the list of actors who have played the part of Scrooge is as
diverse as it is impressive. As “A Christmas Carol” is one of the most adapted
works of fiction in any medium, in good company with the likes of “Dracula” and
“The Three Musketeers,” there’s a Scrooge for every mood, plus a few left over
for Mom and Dad and the kids, and even 31 flavors of Scrooge at the ice cream
parlor. So it seems that a breakdown of some of the best, worst, and most
notable versions of the tale may be helpful.

When watching almost any
film version of the book, one notices a remarkable trend that is unique to “A
Christmas Carol.” While there are some exceptions, most film and television
versions of the story are extraordinarily faithful to the original, with
virtually every scene and character intact, as well as nearly all of the
dialogue. This is true to such a degree that by about the third or fourth
version, you can recite every line of dialogue along with the actors, and get
about 90% of it right. Filmmakers over the decades have seemed to operate under
an unspoken understanding that the book is much more of a play than a novel,
and it is treated as such with absolutely minimal deviation or improvisation.

“A Christmas Carol” goes
hand in hand with film history’s earliest years, with the first adaptation
being a silent short film dating from 1901. The next dates from 1908, after
which there was a new version on average every 2 years or so, until the advent
of television, and there has been on average about one new production of “A
Christmas Carol” on film or TV every year since the ‘50’s.Being such a popular
story, there are, inevitably, some more distinguished and beloved versions than
others. The 1938 adaptation starring Reginald Owen and the 1951 film with
Alastair Sim are traditionally thought of as the “classic Scrooges,” and are
both fine films. For my money, the 1984 TV film with George C. Scott is a
highlight. The film is good, but Scott stands out, for me, as the best
incarnation of Scrooge. Being one of Hollywood’s best leading men, with a vast
range across genres, as seen in Dr.
Strangelove, Patton, and The Changeling, he delivers by far the
most satisfying performance. His miserly Scrooge is a genuinely frightening
sociopath who isn’t just indifferent to the suffering of the poor, he delights
in it. In contrast, his enlightened Scrooge is brimming with joy and cheer,
like a benevolent grandfather one hasn’t seen in years.While 1970’s musical “Scrooge” with Albert Finney is good enough, the one that has the musical Scrooge market absolutely cornered is “A Muppet Christmas Carol” from 1992 with
Michael Caine. Not only is Caine an excellent Scrooge who very nearly brought a
single tear to my weary old bone-dry eyeball, the musical numbers are great,
and the film is both hilarious and cute enough as to nearly induce vomiting.
It’s so endearing and loveable, in fact, that it made me run outside to skip
betwixt the dewberries and tiptoe through the tulips. It made me a kid
again….and not at all in a figurative sense. It’s so funny and childishly
innocent that it literally turned my body 6 years old again.Count Chocula,
here I come!

Disney’s 2009 computer
animated “A Christmas Carol,” directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim
Carrey, is my overall pick for the best “classic” adaptation of the novella.
With a stellar cast and budget and production quality far exceeding any other
version to date, the film captures the scope and scale of 1840s London and
Dickens’s extraordinarily rich period detail much better than any other
adaptation. It is also the only film to properly explore the horror and surreal
elements of the story (it is a ghost
story, after all). There are numerous other versions worthy of mention,
including Hallmark Entertainment’s respectable 1999 telefilm with Patrick
Stewart, Disney’s “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” from 1983 (which marked Mickey
Mouse’s first appearance in theaters since 1953, and was nominated for the
Oscar for best animated short film), the hilarious “Rich Little’s Christmas
Carol” from 1978 (with the master impressionist playing 18 different characters),
Rankin/Bass’s “The Stingiest Man in Town” from 1978 (featuring the
appropriately cast Walter Matthau’s perennial sour frown), and the Doctor Who
episode “A Christmas Carol” from 2010 (with Michael Gambon in a truly bonkers
episode featuring flying sharks as Santa’s reindeer, benevolent human
trafficking, and a Stockholm Syndrome ice princess, to name a few).

There are two questionable
versions worth a bit more discussion. The first is the TV film “Ebenezer” from 1998,
with the story set in the Wild West. Jack Palance was exhumed and rudely
awakened from his eternal slumber to play a gruff, rough ‘n’ tough,
rootin’-tootin’, gun-totin’, card-cheatin’, stogie-smokin’ Scrooge at the ripe
age of 79. He shuffles, winces, naps and mumbles his way through the film at a
tortoise pace, and rumor has it that a team of EMTs was on set at all times
with defibrillators and syringes full of adrenaline to jumpstart his heart in
between takes. He somehow survived another 8 years after making the film. What
more can be said about this version other than….it exists? It’s OK, Jack. You’ll
always be my number one guy.

The next is “An American
Carol” from 2008, directed by parodist David Zucker of “Airplane!” fame. This
half-baked lost bet caught on film is a political “satire” version of the
story, with Chris Farley’s brother (pretty sure that’s his actual name) as a
parody of Michael Moore who openly plots to end July 4th as a
holiday and to help Muslim terrorists destroy America (those wascally wabbits,
up to their old tricks again!). He is visited by the ghosts of George
Washington, George Patton and country superstar Trace Adkins to make him see
the error of his ways and become a good person. This film really captures the
spirit of Dickens’s original, in that the true meaning of human kindness and
goodwill towards man actually lies in
being a hyper-partisan hardcore conservative, a fundamentalist Christian, a
lover of country music, and a zealous, bellicose and racist nationalist. If
you’re a bit confused, it’s because all of those themes were buried deep
beneath layer upon layer upon layer of subtext in Dickens’s story, like a
literary onion, or a baklava. Buried so deep, in fact, that they’re not even
there.

The story has also
inspired many stage productions over the decades in America, the UK, and
elsewhere, including plays starring Frank Langella, F. Murray Abraham, Tim
Curry, Roger Daltry, Jim Broadbent, et al, musicals, and even ballets and
operas. Even Dickens’s great-great-grandson, Gerald Charles Dickens, regularly
performs the story in a one-man show around the world. In radio, Scrooge has
had an impressive run as well, being played by such greats as Michael Gough,
Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Orson Welles (he played the role
quite well at 23 years old), and most famously, Lionel Barrymore for 18 nearly
consecutive years for CBS’s Campbell Playhouse from 1934-53.

And there we have it,
friends. A fairly thorough, if not exhaustive, run-down of the surliest and
iffiest Scrooges to grace the screen, stage, and radio. But wait. “A Christmas
Carol” enthusiasts may have spotted one or two beloved versions, a bit more
liberally adapted from the source material, missing from this survey (while
shaking your heads in disbelief and wishing that I be boiled with my own
pudding and buried with a stake of holly through my heart, no doubt). You may
have noticed that the GREATEST HOLIDAY FILM OF ALL TIME was nowhere to be seen.
Fear not, and stay tuned, dear readers, for…..